After 50 years, Yelle’s engine is still purring
After 50 years, Yelle’s engine is still purring
By CRAIG REMSBURG, Senior Sports Writer
“I shared a car with a man I worked with at the Ford garage in Marquette,” the 70-year-old recalled. “It was a 1937 Ford sedan with no brakes. You stopped when you hit someone.
“I was racing in West Ishpeming. I got spun around and wound up in a big water puddle. (Track workers) had to pull me out.
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A truck driver by trade, he races some 30 times a year at Upper Peninsula tracks in Sands, Norway and Kinross.
“It’s fun and I like the competition,” Yelle (pronounced “yell”) said. “It’s my hunting and fishing.
“I build my own engines, too, so that’s part of it. I like to see if I can get more power than the next guy.”
He’s driving a 2006 Ford Fusion this season he assembled from a kit.
“It’s all Fiberglass and plastic, and took me about a month working half-days to put it together,” Yelle said. “It has a modified 358-cubic engine.”
He has always driven Fords (“they’ve always lasted”) and has run under the same No. 93 in the Late Model division since the 1970s.
He hasn’t kept track of the number of races he has won, but Yelle can still race with the best of them.
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Yelle remembers one major crash in his long racing career, that coming in “the late 1970s or ’80” in Norway.
“I hit a cement wall square at 70 mph,” he said. “I may have had some help — someone may have bumped me. You could see where the seat belt goes that I was all black and blue.”
Yelle said he doesn’t bump anyone out of the way on the track “unless I have to.”
“I just don’t drive like that,” he said. “I can’t afford to. I don’t spend as much as some drivers do (on their cars). I make do with what I’ve got.”
Longtime opponent Bob Goodwin of Sands called Yelle a “sportsman” on the track.
“He’s competitive — he always wants to win,” Goodwin said. “But he drives a clean car. He’s just there to race and he never chews you out on the track. He’s enjoyable to race against.”
Added Mike Mattson of Sands: “He’s fair and ... just loves to race. That’s what interests him.”
Yelle has no idea how much it costs him yearly to race, but depends on several area sponsors to keep him running.
He said his biggest track payday came one weekend at Kinross and downstate Onaway when he pocketed $1,000.
Yelle spends “most every night” working on his car to make it run properly.
“Our summers are pretty much oriented around racing,” his wife, Jonelle, said. “Saturday’s, I’d like to do something else than work on the car. But once I get to the races, I’m fine.”
Yelle said he has no plans to quit racing anytime soon.
“I’ll do it as long as I feel good,” he said. “I get disgusted at times when I can’t get the car to run right, but I still like racing.”
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